


Tethered to Your Bones

by Cimmerian



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Childhood Friends, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, Kinda sad?, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26771911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cimmerian/pseuds/Cimmerian
Summary: “You know, I’d die for you”“No, don’t. Live for yourself.”Funny how  Yuta has always been with Doyoung every single time he's wanted to disappear. It's different this time though, the kind he desperately wishes to never experience again.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24





	Tethered to Your Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> The title comes from [Tethered Bones](https://open.spotify.com/track/45XWLxrdaZompiNbIXXj0y) by Talos.  
> I don't have a playlist for it but I'd suggest [Nuvole Bianche](https://open.spotify.com/track/2SkIfLghx2KzvtJPtBgF8b) and [Experience](https://open.spotify.com/track/1BncfTJAWxrsxyT9culBrj) by Ludovico Einaudi, in that order.

Doyoung lets out a pent-up cry of rage as he throws over the scribbled drawing sheets.

Another failure. Again.

Four weeks and four failed attempts at trying to occupy himself with something – anything to fill the gaps in between his everydays.

His room feels suffocating as he looks up to see the horribly painted glass shards and the broken guitar strings. The sole polaroid in front of him seems to mock him for his inability to move on and be normal again. Things aren’t normal and Doyoung doesn’t want to even _pretend_ he is dealing with it alright. Despite that, he can’t really bring himself to tear the said polaroid out as he’d done with the multiple canvases surrounding it.

If he closes his eyes and focuses just enough, he can feel his heart thumping. Covering his face with his hands, Doyoung tries to match his breaths with his heartbeat in an attempt to keep his calm. It doesn’t work and he feels frustrated. His head hurts.

Sighing through his mouth, he finally decides to go out for a walk. Pretty ironic since he’s usually the one who’d insist on staying in his room unless it was absolutely necessary to venture outside. He walks out of his room as he puts on his hoodie – black like his soul, Doyoung had joked when he’d brought it with his friend. Six months and a life time ago.

He steps outside, fumbling through his pockets as he walks over the pavement. Putting in his earphones with one hand, he pulls out his phone and looks for the playlist he’d usually default to when he has nothing particular in his mind or didn’t _want_ to think about anything. The volume goes up on both his phone and the earphones, as high as it’d get in an attempt to drown his thoughts. And it works… kind of. His mind is still a whirlwind of emotions, memories, snippets of conversations, text messages, encompassing anything and everything. But the music stops him from focusing on any one particular memory, one particular moment and tainting it with his pain. It’s mostly bearable, so Doyoung lets it be, though he knows it won't last forever.

There’s someone beside him who is looking at him as if he has grown two heads. The lady coughs and pointedly stares at his ears. _The music must be loud enough to be heard outside too._ Doyoung speeds to a fairly paced jog. A gentle breeze rushes past him, carrying a faint smell of fresh dirt and a promise of rain with it. He can feel a headache blooming so he takes off his earphones. His mind wanders.

***

_I wish I could disappear._

Doyoung had been seven when the thought first crossed his mind, though back then he didn’t really understand the full implication of what he’d said. Disappear, vanish, become invisible, all of them meant the same, right? Well, to the Doyoung from then, they did. He’d been playing hide-and-seek with his friend Taeyong, Yuta and Yuta’s cousin, Sicheng.

_If I could disappear, I could sit next to so many lovely butterflies and look at their pretty wings and they wouldn’t run away. I would always win at hide-and-seek. And I could run away from the school and never have to do boring home work then._

To the young Doyoung, nothing, literally _nothing_ seemed cooler than that. So, when he told Yuta about his genius idea on the way back home, the look on his face perplexed him to no extent.

Yuta had laughed as he said, “Doie, oh my lovely Doyoungie! It’ll be _so_ bad if you disappear. Who will play with me then? If they can’t see you, won’t your mom be super worried? And if you vanish in the air like— _poof—”_ he had gestured with his hands _, “—_ won’t the world forget you? How’ll you become a famous singer then, hmm?”

That would be horrible, Doyoung remembers thinking. If the world forgot him, won’t that mean he wouldn’t get any presents for his birthday next week?

Yuta had come closer to Doyoung with a very serious expression on his face. Almost as if they were in one of those meetings Taeyong’s dad always told them about. “It’s better if you don’t run away. Promise me you’ll stay.”

Doyoung had tried to matched Yuta’s solemn expression as he said, “yes! I’ll stay.”

They linked their fingers together and ran off into the sunset.

***

Doyoung is seventeen the second time he seriously wishes to disappear again. This time however, he knows the full implications of it. He had never been one of the depressed teens, not really but he did have his bad days. Or well, bad months maybe. He doesn’t tell his “ _s(e)oulmate”_ this time around. But he is _sure_ Yuta knows because he saw Yuta change his Pinterest bio to ‘ _we are all broken, that’s how light gets in’_ as if in response to Doyoung’s ‘ _I am broken and nobody can fix it’._ He’d screen-shotted both of them and saved it in his private board, the one he looks at when he has to remind himself that he is loved. It’s filled with pictures and screenshots and letter from his friends.

His suspicions are confirmed when Yuta comes to his house later, with ice cream and take-out food in his hand. He toes of his shoes on the threshold and goes over to sit on the couch, searching for something. (The TV remote, Doyoung realizes as Yuta let out a triumphant _‘ah’_ when he finally finds the said object.)

“Markie started this new series, and me and Johnny have this bet on who can spoil it for him first.”

Doyoung lets out a small _mhm_ to indicate that he’s listening as he places the take-out box on the kitchen counter. Resisting the urge to correct Yuta’s grammar has become easier after about three years of hopeless efforts that lead to no avail. Yuta would simply shrug it off every single time Doyoung tried.

(“Hey, I am a Japanese kid. Cut me some slack. Korean in sooo difficult.”

“Yes, but aren’t you in Korea now? Doesn’t that mean you should at least try to improve?”

“No Doie, that’s Sicheng’s job. He’s the kid with good grades, I am supposed to be his super dashing but good-for-nothing cousin remember?”)

“It’s a weekend and I have nothing better to do and I can annoy you, Mark, _and_ Johnny at the same time. So, let’s watch it together okay?”

Doyoung switches the softer lights on. “Alright, I’ll go warm the food. You put it on, okay?” He swears he can almost _feel_ Yuta’s sigh of relief.

The series, it turns out, is about two people who heal each other’s psychological and emotional wounds. Yuta makes it a point to snuggle as close to Doyoung as he can without them merging into one single body. _"You absolutely must save me from this unforgiving, merciless cold, Doie. That's what best soulmates do!"_ Doyoung lets out a small, smug smile when Yuta starts rambling about the importance of using two different and opposite elements to create a better atmosphere when Doyoung offers to switch off the A/C. “ _It’ll create the perfect mood for the drama, Doie.”_

Yuta’s clingy behaviour continues for the next month or so. Doyoung, now, is long used to Yuta randomly popping outside his classes. Actually making an effort to complete his homework with Doyoung in the library and treating him to food is ultimately supposed “to better their soulmate-ness” after all. Wasn’t that the excuse he used to take Doyoung to an amusement park? Oh, and the _skinship_. Yuta, it seems, has decided to turn into a koala for their biology project, what with him holding Doyoung’s hands at all times. It had become too much to the point that he had to physically pry his fingers off his hands and tell him to stop. Yuta would simply act offended for a minute and then find another reason to be around him.

Doyoung remembers the time Yuta asked him to come hangout with his friends (for drinking more like it). They had all gone to Taeil and Ten’s shared apartment where Doyoung had quite firmly refused to indulge in underage drinking. Yuta, however, was a completely different story. After all, he’d been the one who’d proposed the idea of beer-pong. Few minutes in and it was quite clear that they didn’t have any intentions of stopping anytime soon, if the hollers and cheers were anything to go by.

Doyoung had been almost 45 minutes into whatever book he was reading back then when Yuta stumbled up to him “ _very not drunk”_ and took Doyoung’s kindle in his hands.

“Doyoungieeeeee,” he’d looked into his eyes as he said, “remember the promise we made back when we were seven? The one in the playground?”

Doyoung had gently taken his kindle back from Yuta (yes, he did care about Yuta but he couldn’t afford to risk the kindle. Not-drunk Yuta would understand, hopefully) and mumbled a _yes_.

“The one—what was it? Doie?”

“Together forever,” Doyoung replied while holding Yuta’s hand.

“Ah yes! Together forever. You remember that, don’t you? Don’t vanish okay? I’ll be sad if you go. So sad.”

Doyoung’s _mm, I won’t, you too_ seemed to satisfy his (self-proclaimed) _eternal sarang_ as Yuta gave him one of his trademark blinding smiles… and proceeded to throw up on Doyoung’s shirt.

_Ah, bittersweet memories._

The next day, Doyoung went through all of the pins he’d saved in his emo board impulsively titled _“The Other Me”_ before he deleted it once and for all.

Whether Yuta found about that and _then_ bought him chocolates to celebrate “an ordinary day” or he’d bought chocolates and then found about it… well Doyoung would never know. But that was alright; Yuta’s random bouts of laughter throughout the day were more than enough to satiate his curiosity.

***

The third time Doyoung wanted to disappear was when he was 20, a struggling college student with too many upcoming exams to handle and a flu on top of that. Yuta, as usual, was there to help him except Doyoung doesn’t have any recollections of it-- it sort of happened like a fever dream. However, he does remember this one particular exchange that took place:

“You know, I’d die for you”

“No, don’t. Live for yourself.”

Kind of weird, Doyoung knows, but what’s even weirder is that he can’t remember which one of them said what. It is pretty odd but, to put it in the Stan Twitter language Yuta taught him, it lives in his mind 24/7 rent free.

***

His feet stop in front of the cemetery. Its an old greying thing with rusted metal gates and lilac bushes all around.

_“Lilacs are used to mask the scent of death you know, Doie.”_

He picks a sprig on his way in. Finding Yuta’s grave has become an unconscious effort now. It’s almost diagonal to where Doyoung’s mom is buried. He sits down beside the grave as he puts the lilacs over it. The old candles have been replaced with new ones, there’s quite a few bouquets and three letters. Someone from college most probably. Yuta had loads of friends after all.

Faintly, he can feel his eyes sting, but that’s alright. Crying is just an emotional release, he’d read somewhere. And it’s not as if this is the first time he’s crying in front of Yuta. Being best friends with someone for over thirteen years did that to you, after all. Thirteen years and counting.

“They threw out your stuff today. I mean they tried to, but Sicheng convinced them to give it to the street kids. He said you’d have liked it better that way.”

“Your uncle and aunt fought over you, you know. Uncle wanted to take you back to your birthplace. He wanted to bury you with your mom and dad but Aunt said you’d spent more time with us than with your parents.”

There is a rumble of thunder overhead, it’s probably going to rain. Doyoung stays put.

“Sicheng hasn’t been eating well these days. He rarely talks either. He hasn’t cried since your funeral though. Oh, Ten was there too. Remember Taeil’s old roommate? A lot of people came from our school and college. All of them said you’d helped them somehow or the other. Mrs. Dong’s face looked so proud. _I was too._

“Donghyuck and Jeno were there too. The boy you’d saved—his name is Lee Jeno, I don’t think you know that. Well, now you do. Donghyuck is his brother. He is one of Mark’s friends. Trippy right? I never expected that either.

“They both were the only outsiders Mrs. Dong allowed to look at you. Jeno’s father’s verdict came out today. 11 years of jail for abusing his household members and—and for you. Uncle tried to up it to twenty-three, that’s the maximum. It didn’t work though.

“You know, Yuta, you brought them together as much as you drove them apart—Mr. and Mrs. Dong. You used to say the reason they fight so much is because your uncle decided to adopt you. I don’t think that’s true. They’d held onto each other during the funeral the way they never used to before. You brought them together too. Though I wish it didn’t have to end this way.

There are water droplets falling off the sky. Doyoung tilts his head up to let them mask the hot tears flowing through his eyes.

_"I wish I could vanish so I could follow you to where ever you’ve disappeared. But I’ll live. For myself and you."_

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand that would be it. Thank you for reading.  
> Here's a funfact: Yuta and Doyoung bought matching black hoodies six months prior to his death. Doyoung had commented that it was black like his soul, right? Yuta's response was that it was also pure like their bond. Just ~soulmate things~ I guess. 
> 
> Also, "I'm broken and no one can fix it" is a line from Jennifer Niven's All the Bright Places, and "we're all broken, that's how light gets in" comes from Hemingway's book A Farewell to Arms and/or Cohen's song Anthem!! 
> 
> [ Here's the polaroid~](https://pin.it/3JRPtbp)
> 
> Stay safe everyone. Drink loads of water and try to be happy.  
> FIGHTING HAEYADWAE!


End file.
